


Four Meals

by NienteZero



Category: Leverage
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: S04e07 The Grave Danger Job, Food, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Multi, Pre-OT3, Pre-Series, Vignettes, a nearly pornographic description of some canapes i once ate, food as a metaphor for anything that isn't horrible in Eliot's life, mostly Eliot's tragic past, partly an episode tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 08:57:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6073153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NienteZero/pseuds/NienteZero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four vignettes moving from Eliot's life in the military to Eliot's life with the team, some people he killed and some things he ate along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Meals

**Spec Ops, Somewhere in the Balkans, Classified.**

The food on the wooden table in front of Eliot was the same local chow he'd been eating ever since his detachment came up this mountain. Tonight it was pickled cabbage rolls like the Amish back home made, and a thick soup with rutabaga and other vegetables. Clambering around the hills to scout enemy locations was work that left the boys in the team starving most nights.

But tonight the sour smell of the cabbage was making Eliot's stomach roil.

There was something grotesque about making his first close-range kill and then sitting down to a hearty home-style meal. He kept thinking back to the look in the man's eyes at the moment they both realized that they would fight. The moment Eliot had silently crested a hill that morning and seen the guy dressed in similar dark, warm clothes to him. He'd seen the silhouette of the rifle the man carried, sharp against the wintry grey-bright sky. At the same time the man saw him, and the next vicious minutes had a leaden inevitability to them.

Eliot was trained for that moment but it was still a shock snapping through his body, a jolt into action, close hand-to-hand grappling punctuated by breathless grunts. As soon as he had the chance, Eliot silently jammed his K-Bar up under the man's ribs, holding his hand across the man's mouth as he convulsed and bled. One of them was going to die and it could have been Eliot. He tasted the bitterness of fear in his mouth and his heart beat out a fast rhythm of still-alive, still-alive. The man was limp in his arms.

Eliot waited a long moment to be sure he was dead and not faking. He felt frozen in those seconds until he was sure he'd won, until he was sure it was all the other man's blood that he could smell and feel, hot on his hands. He stood there over the body staring down at it, a man diminished to a thing, an object on the rocky ground. Jerkily, he wiped his hands down the legs of his fatigues until the blood was mostly gone. He still had work to do, a job to finish. The dead man was now nothing more than information. He'd scouted the area assigned to him then headed back down to camp.

Eliot stared down at his plate. He was starving, he felt hot and cold, and the thought of eating made bile rise up in his throat. The Commander slapped him on the back and said something about a good job out there. Local forces were already moving on the area Eliot scouted, battle lines moving into place thanks to his report. Eliot forced himself to take a spoonful of the thick soup. It felt like glue in his mouth and he didn't think he could swallow. He was twenty two, the youngest kid in the unit, and he was here because he could follow orders and because he would kill a man.

By the time he was twenty three he could follow orders, kill a man, and eat dinner without throwing up quietly in the latrine an hour later.

  
**Private Military Corporation, Vienna Austria**

  
The target wasn't supposed to be armed. This was supposed to be an easy job, a thin, balding Viennese businessman with the habit of skipping out of his office early to miss the rush of workers hurrying home. His weak point was taking the same predictable route from his office to the U-Bahn every evening.

Eliot's boss had provided Eliot with the barest intel on the target: a photo, a location and a date. Eliot wasn't a stupid kid following orders any more. He always dug deeper than the information his boss thought he should know. Back channel noise said that the target was on the distribution side of a heroin import business. Strictly a money guy. Not a 'paranoid to the point of carrying a ceremonial dagger in his sock' guy.

The target always crossed through the Burggarten on his way home, under the shadow of heavy old buildings. Eliot had the timing worked out perfectly. He'd watched this man for a week, a silent, unseen presence marking the target for death. The late fall evening gave the cover of soft, dim light, hardly touched by the park's wrought iron lamps. This was cushy compared to some of the jobs he'd done during his spec ops years. City streets and park benches, instead of rooftops and mountain crags.

The easiest kill would be to take a sniper position on the palatial and grotesquely over-ornamented (to Eliot's eye) Austrian National Library. He'd have a clean shot as the target passed through the park, and he'd be in and out before anyone noticed a man had been killed. But the brief had included an order that the assassination be close and personal, to send a message.

Eliot wasn't clear on what message "dead because I snapped his neck" gave that was different from "dead because I shot him." But it was all the same to Eliot, uncomplicated work either way. Especially when the target was so suburban and harmless. But now the soft target was swinging a fucking sgian dubh at him.

The first flush of the fight, firing muscles and slowing time, was a familiar friend to Eliot. He saw the target clock him as a threat, bend down as if to tie his shoe, and come up with with the knife, like the world had been shifted into stop-motion animation. Options and outcomes flashed across Eliot's mind. He let the target lunge, took a grazing slice along his ribs from the sgian dubh, and pivoted fluidly to catch the man off balance.

Eliot had been sloppy on this one, overconfident. But armed and aware or not, the target had put too much momentum into his lunge at Eliot, and couldn't turn fast enough to avoid Eliot's grapple. Eliot grabbed the target from behind, arms around his head, and executed the clean, forceful movement needed to break the man's neck. Eliot was bleeding, but the man was dead, and that's what he got paid for.

The park was beginning to get busy with commuters cutting through it on their way home. Eliot dragged the body into the inky shadow of a massive oak tree. He put his hand to his side - the blood was already congealing, tacky on his skin, but it would make him conspicuous if he didn't cover it up. He stripped the target's overcoat off the body quickly, grateful that it hadn't started stiffening yet. The coat was too small, but Eliot couldn't afford to leave behind any of his bloodied clothing as evidence, so he shrugged it on over his black sweater and put his hands in the pockets to pull it part-way closed over the sluggishly bleeding cut.

Finishing a wetworks job, especially one where he got hurt, always left Eliot starving as the adrenaline dropped away. He'd long since lost any nausea at what his hands did. It was just what he was good at, that was all. He left the park and walked toward the opera house, blending in with the crowd of tourists who'd emerged in their gaudy clothes to take in the culture.

A streetside hotdog stand called out to Eliot, the comfort of something like home. A big American dude ordering two of the Käsekrainer didn't even raise the wurst guy's eyebrows. Eliot bit into the juicy pork sausage rich with cheese and felt his body begin to settle into the familiar fall back down from the heights of crisis mode.

Later he'd walk for hours along the banks of the Wien avoiding the kind of sleep where he dreamed about horses and sweet country girls and and a life where he was good for something else.

  
**Damien Moreau's Estate**

Moreau's cocktail parties were a drag. Tonight there were two targets for Eliot to handle, one definite traitor to Moreau, one possible threat to the organization. That was hardly enough business to keep Eliot from getting bored with all the small talk and tiny canapés. The food at these things was the fiddliest little shit he'd ever seen. What good was a bite of smoked salmon lasagna smaller than the first joint of Eliot's little finger supposed to be? But it wasn't like he ever wanted for anything these days. Moreau was a generous boss.

Eliot left the crowded dance floor following the possible threat out onto the marble balcony that adjoined the ballroom. Clouds hid the half-moon, shading everything dark against the bright lights of the party inside. This was the perfect chance to get his job done. It was funny what dangling a guy over a balcony by his feet could do to set that guy's mind right about messing with Damien Moreau.

The dangling man took his situation pretty badly, crying and whining and pleading loud enough that if there wasn't a party going on, he might have got some attention. Eliot thought about dropping him, just to shut up the whole "please don't kill me" monologue. Too much cleanup, though, and he still had the other bit of business to take care of. He was ready to be done for the night and head down to the kitchen. Eliot could kill a good bloody steak, fix some gratinéed potatoes to go with it, some of that great local mustard in the béchamel. He pulled the man back up onto the balcony and gave him a wordless growl to cement his message. From the way the guy was shaking and stammering promises of loyalty to Moreau, Eliot figured he'd made his point.

That left the definite traitor. A person ought to know that they didn't double-cross Damien Moreau and then come drink his liquor. She was easy enough to back into a quiet alcove off the ballroom. Funny how the people she'd been chatting with ghosted away when they saw him, like a school of fish splitting to let a shark through. He made this message quick, a whisper of "Damien knows," a grip on her wrist and a twist and pressure that would mean broken bones and torn ligaments, and he was done, leaving the double-crosser leaning against the wall cradling her ruined arm and trying not to draw more attention to herself now the blood was in the water. Eliot's night's work was finished with that one quiet moment of violence.

As Eliot headed back through the party with an air of danger hanging over him, he swiped a few more of the little salmon lasagna things off a passing tray. Somewhere, someone had the time and patience to roll pasta so thin you could see right through it. Choose the perfect Greek olive oil to drop a delicate bead on top of each of them. Somewhere, someone got to sweat and swear over making each one of the canapés so that Moreau's drunk friends could swallow them down without noticing the way the telicherry pepper balanced the Tasmanian salmon. Someone got to smile when Chef finally gave them the nod that their knifework was good enough.

Eliot's brow wrinkled and partygoers scattered out of his path. He paused at the stairs and headed up to where his room was, instead of downstairs to the kitchen. He wasn't in the mood for dinner after all.

**Portland, after the Grave Danger Job**

"Hah!"

Parker was the only person who could sneak up on Eliot. Firstly, she was just that good. Secondly, his defensive instincts went all soft around her. The loud exclamation was the first notice he got of her presence.

Standing in front of Hardison's freezer, Eliot nearly dropped the neatly labeled containers of freezer-ready meals as Parker popped a ceiling tile and dangled next to him, pointing accusingly.

"Tryin' to give me a heart attack, Parker?" Eliot growled. He stacked the containers, moving meals already in the freezer to the front of the shelf, and putting the newer ones behind them. He checked the date labels to make sure none of the older ones were getting to freezer burn age.

"Catching you in the act." Parker said, swinging herself down to the floor and putting the ceiling tile back up. Eliot was pretty sure Hardison had put tacky drop ceilings in just for her convenience. Which was sweet but annoying.

"The act of what, Parker?" Eliot slammed the freezer door shut and leaned against it. He had nothing to feel guilty about. No law against a man making sure his friends ate a decent meal once in a while.

Parker didn't look at all intimidated by Eliot's scowl.

"Ever since ... the thing..." Parker said, "you've gone crazy with the food. He's not going to disappear if you don't feed him for one day."

Eliot's scowl deepened. He knew Parker hated talking about what happened to Hardison, when they thought they might not be fast enough to get him out of the ground. He didn't want to talk about it either. Didn't think they needed to go over that hellish day again.

"He don't eat right. Neither do you. Orange soda and sugary cereal ain't good to eat all the time."

Parker wiggled past him, shoving him out of the way so she could open the freezer door. Not that she could have moved him if he didn't want to let her, but he'd gotten in the habit of moving when she pushed.

"Coq au vin rouge. Simmer in pan to reheat, garnish with parsley. Serve with pain de campagne and salad," Parker read one of the labels. "Coconut chicken curry. Heat over water bath, serve with jasmine rice, garnish with cilantro. Kabocha squash and roast garlic soup. Simmer in pan to reheat, garnish with crème fraîche and chives," she went on, before throwing her hands up and turning to Eliot.

"You know he's just going to toss them in the microwave. We don't even know what crème fraîche is," she said, narrowing her eyes.

"In fact," she said, poking him in the chest more firmly than seemed warranted, "if you want us to eat right, you should be coming over for dinner, but you're not here. Just me."

Eliot sighed and crossed his arms defensively.

"He needs you," he said, "and you need to be with him right now."

"Hmm," Parker said, "You're the one who's cleaning out every supermarket in Boston."

Eliot reached out and clasped Parker's poking hand.

"Parker," he said, "yeah, it shook me up. And maybe I don't always know the best way to care for someone. But we can all see that you need to figure out where you stand, what you feel. Been a long time since I first knew I was sunk when it came to you two."

"All the bad things I did, the worse I got the more I pretended I didn't care about anyone, didn't have anything worth caring about. But that was never really true and it was bubblin' back up again since I walked away from Moreau. Needin' someone to look after, people who were... mine. Didn't take long for the team to be that way."

He didn't say that it was like he'd been emptied out of all his heart by choices and circumstance and bad men helping him walk down a rotten road. Like he'd been so thirsty for some cool clean water, and the team was an oasis in front of his feet. That right on that first job when Hardison had looked at him like he was something special for taking out the security guards, when he'd pulled Hardison out of the building before it blew up, he'd been done for right then. And how he felt about her, that was barely a half-step behind falling for Hardison.

"I don't want it," Parker said, sharp and abrupt, pulling her hand out of his. "I don't want to feel things like that.’

Eliot raised an eyebrow, "Sucks, don't it? I thought I'd passed up on feelin' like this, thought I'd lost any right to. But here we are. You think I wasn't scared to death of losin' you when we were up on that mountain? I was. You're worth bein' scared for."  
  
Parker dipped her head, and darted in close for the shortest hug, before backing away.

"So you're going stay and to make us dinner," was all she said.

"I guess I am."

He guessed he always would.

**Author's Note:**

> 51PegasiB encouraged me to keep slogging away at this after it had already been over a year of working on essentially a quite short story. And also gave me the perfect framing device for the final vignette. Without which this would still be in writer's block limbo.


End file.
